D2 would like to dive in college. She’d definitely like the emphasis of her college experience to be academic, but she would like to be with a competitive team. Her coach is quite knowledgeable about DI schools, and his advice about particular programs has been about them. He’s not as familiar with DII and DIII. (She also gave her rather large preliminary list to another coach who is looking at it now. This one knows more about DII/III. I still think D would like to gather more information from a range of people, which is why I’m asking for experiences here.)
D is concerned that the balance of academics/athletics will skew too far towards athletics if she ends up at a DI program. She knows several DI athletes, and they basically say that it is a lot, but special scheduling and tutoring helps. We don’t know anyone yet in DII or III programs, but we’ve generally heard that DII can be much like DI and that DIII can be time-consuming, but not as much as the others. Also, however, we’ve heard that it can actually kind of even out because special accommodations are not available at DIIIs. What of all of this has been true in your experience?
Is D’s concern valid? She is leaning towards not considering DI schools, but the coach and I would like her to keep her options open and decide later. (She’s a rising junior.)
We know that programs differ, and so what is true at one DI/II/III is not true at another. If it helps, keep in mind that she’d like to be at a competitive program that will stretch her, no matter what division. Would you please let me know what you’ve found to be true in your own experience/children’s experiences/other close people’s experiences?
Instead of worrying about Div 1.2,3 I would instead first try to find a list of schools your daughter would like to attend that has programs she wants to study. Then I would contact those schools immediately and start expressing interest in becoming part of their program.
That way, is she ends up hating diving, gets hurt, sitting on the bench ( is that a thing in diving, lol??) she will still enjoy her time at school and get to study what she wants.
I’d also recommend stressing the importance of keeping grades up in junior year and to study for act/sat.
Her list is based on her major first, then what she perceives as the environment of the school. We’ve spent the summer researching schools first for what she believes she would like to be her major/minor, then their diving team and what division they are in.
Of course, she knows about grades, and, yes, she has been studying for the ACT since the spring. As I said, academics are first and foremost to her–and me. We also know about injuries and the changing of minds, etc., that can happen in college athletics, which is a small part of the reason she’d like academics to be at the forefront.
Now that we have a list of schools she likes, we just would like to get some other people’s experiences with the differences between the divisions as they relate to day-to-day college life and academics.
My son has talked with a few DIII and one DII school. Spring sport
DII
Fall term, weightlifting,cardio and group drills. Some captains practices where the kids are on their own. I don’t think the coach can teach individually during the fall if I remember correctly. There is no travel in the fall.
From mid Jan on, it’s practice a couple of hours a day. Usually 1 game per week. They play in a regional league so most games are bus rides. Bus has wifi so kids can do homework/study. Good access to tutors/mentors.
DIII
No practice in fall, but captains practices and weightlifting. Not mandatory, but most guys showed up unless school work was more important. The kids follow an off season conditioning program. Local travel.
Mid- Jan on- same routine as the DII guys.
It seems like it’s a few hours per day commitment at minimum. Some of the kids spend more time practicing on their own or doing extra fitness or just throwing around with their teammates. All of the coaches stressed school was more important than practice and don’t stress out if you needed to miss a practice to complete something important for school.
I’m sure D1 is more intense. My son was not qualified to look at the D1 option, nor did he have any desire for hard core year round practice/training/stress.
The divisions are important if she’ll (you’ll) be relying on athletic scholarship money. If you are full pay for a D3 school but can’t really afford the school, then you might want to look at D1 or D2 schools that will give her a scholarship.
Swimming/diving scholarships are a little difficult to figure out. Some schools slice and dice them so much that any one athlete gets little. Others give a lot to best, or to juniors and seniors. My friend’s daughter swam at a Fordham and started with a small scholarship but by senior year was up to full tuition.
My daughter had the same questions regarding time commitment and division though she is a rising senior and thus I don’t know if the info is accurate in reality.
In her case, the D1s were the most rigid and she wouldn’t be able to go abroad which was a deal killer - they told her pretty consistently expect 20 hours a week dedicated to training + games and travel on top of that. (I"m sure it is different for diving).
D2s were 50/50 but all very up front and their answers gave great insight into the school and how they balance the academic and athletics. We had everything from liberal “we will work with you” to “I wouldn’t advise you to be a bio major because it’s hard to miss labs.” That led us to consider only D3s.
The D3s she gave consideration to had specific time expectations both in and out of season. I guess that’s a long way of saying your best bet is to to ask the coach directly (at least in our experience) as every one she asked had a very specific answer.
One of the differences we found was that at the D3 schools we looked at no classes were held during regular practice hours so students never had to choose between playing their sport and taking a class. These were NESCACs so it may not hold true for other D3’s.
Most schools in D1 (assuming a little bigger than most LACs) offer more than one section of a course, so scheduling is not hard. My daughter in a D2 school has no problem (and athletes have priority registration). Practices are set, and you don’t schedule classes during practices. If a coach thinks the student can handle the major, I suspect they’d ‘let’ the student major in anything she wanted to. We have 5+ engineers on our team, and a lot of other STEM majors.
I think during the season, most coaches use every one of those 20 hours a week allowed for practice, and some use more for weight lifting, films, meetings, and whatever else they can get away with. In the off season, things are much more relaxed.
I’m with @Finalthree - I think it probably varies by school and coach, and particularly with diving, the nature of the facilities. There are NESCAC schools that do not have a separate diving pool (or 3 meter boards!) which could have an impact on practice times as they are sharing the pool with swimmers. If the coaching is good, she can continue to be successful anywhere (years ago, I knew a young man at one of those under-resourced D3 schools who qualified for, and did well at, the D1 nationals, but it took a lot of extra effort on his part – traveling to a 3M board to practice - and who knows what on the part of the administration. Clearly, not the easiest path! )
D1 accommodations can be amazing, not just for academics, but for housing, dining, etc. At many D3s, close to half the students are athletes so no accommodation is necessary. But it also means life as an athlete is msinstream. Even at D3 schools, there is a big time commitment. But there, when you decide you’re fed up with it and you want the 20 hours a week back, you can walk.
I think think those are two big differences right there. At a D3 school athletes usually don’t get priority registration, but then there’s no need for it. I addition, at a D3 school, because there are no athletic scholarships on the line the coach has no say whatsoever over what a student majors in.
This brings up another point; at a D3 school there is no obligation to play the sport. A student could accept a coach’s support in admissions but then never show up to the filed if they decide not to play.It wouldn’t be a nice thing to do to the coach but I’ve seen it happen. More common is that the student gets to campus, has trouble juggling their sport and academics, gets burned out, has conflict with the coach, or just decides they want more of a social life, and drops off the team.
I was talking last night with someone whose daughter’s friend is playing for a D1 school. The kid is totally burned out and has been begging her dad to let her quit since freshman year. The problem is that the family can’t afford the full cost of school. They need that athletic scholarship so she’s stuck.
I also know a kid who was a recruited superstar who was injured and had to take a season to rehab. When she came back she had lost her started slot to another player. She spent two years riding the bench but she couldn’t quit because of her scholarship. It was quite dispiriting. At a D3 school she would;t have had the acclaim and advantages of D1 support but it’s likely she would have played all 3 years she was healthy.
D3 schools commonly have athlete behavior contacts (e.g., you get caught drinking you’re off the team) and sometimes have informal support, such as team breakfasts (the team all sits together in held in the regular dining room) or information on tutors or easy classes passed down through the team but these are less formalized than they would be at a D1. My impression is that at all levels coaches will usually push their players to excel academically.
For me, here are the plusses and minuses of D1 vs. D3. (I don’t have much experience of D2 schools, but my impression from hearing from parents of D2 is similar to that of the OP).
D1
Big time sports and all the fame and acclaim that go with them. Prestige.
Opportunity to go pro if it’s that kind of sport (e.g. football).
Better support. Dedicated tutors, priority registration.
Athletic scholarships.
Opportunity to play with the best.
D3
Student athletes are often better integrated into the campus, in some sense precisely because they don’t have advantages such as priority registration or special housing.
Ability to quit the sport or take a break without penalty. Athletes are not restricted from junior year abroad, although many choose to do it in the off season.
Generally less intense, so easier to integrate athletics with academics. Practice times scheduled around classes instead of classes scheduled around practices.
Sometimes (but not always, depending on the school and sport) less intense, so less chance of burnout.
Less likely to be competing with superstar athletes, so less likely you’ll spend the season on the bench.
Choose D1 (or D2?) if:
You know you want to play for 4 years.
You need an athletic scholarship.
You would do much better with restrictions and academic support.
You like the acclaim of being a select athlete (D3 athletes in less spectator heavy sports are more likely to play to sparsely filled stands).
Choose D3 if:
You want the flexibility to quit for any reason.
You want to major in something that would be hard to juggle with a heavy practice schedule.
You are eligible for a lot of need-based aid.
You’d rather be one of the many than one of the few (D3 schools tend to have a large percentage of students playing varsity sports).
You want a better chance to play a lot of minutes.
Maybe @OldbatesieDoc will check in as her son was a diver at a NESCAC school
Like gardenstategal said the facilities definitely matter
Sounds like a school like Middlebury might fit your goals both academically as well as athletically
No classes at time of practice, great facilities, and sports taken seriously
That was a good round up @sue22. The only thing I would caution is D1 = Opportunity to play with the best + fame/glory.
While that is certainly true of top tier schools (Big 10, Pac 10 etc), we found the talent at some D1s to be much lower than some of the top D3s. In one of the recruiting seminars they showed a statistic that the top third of the D1s are indeed, top talent. But second and third tier D1s are on par or lower than top D3s so you can’t base competitiveness purely on divsion. In our experience, at our sport, that appears true.
I agree that the level of play at D3 can be fantastic, but sometimes a good high school team could beat the D3 team. In daughter’s sport, there are 250 D3 teams and when you are playing #126? Not that competitive. The top 20 are good and could beat some D1 and D2 teams. I know D1 players, or rather former players, who used the sport to get in and never played a second- didn’t care about the scholarship (if there was one), just wanted to get in and did, then quit. Happens at all levels.
We looked at all three levels. The D1 schools were not those top in academics or the sport, and were pretty quickly crossed off the list. The D3s were expensive, and those we looked at did not have the most competitive teams. The teams wanted D for her good grades and athletic skills, but she wasn’t interested in the schools. D2 sort of won by elimination and it’s been great. She fits in size wise, academically, and the scholarship is good. One of her teammates did start in D1, played a little, school academics were good, but she just didn’t like it. Transferred to D2, she’s a superstar athletically and academically, school is close enough that her parents can go to all her games, and it is just a better fit.
Athletic time commitment will be school/coach dependent. I competed D1 but know those that went D2/D3 and put in as much time depending on their individual situation. Common across all divisions would be that very good teams will have high team commitment expectations.
Actually that’s true, and I would caution the OP that what I wrote is a list of generalities and adherence to it is dependent of the sport and the school.
It should also be noted that many otherwise D3 schools offer some D1 sports. For instance, little St. Lawrence plays D1 hockey against schools like Penn State and UNH. Some of the NESCACs, like Bates and Williams, are all D3 except for Nordic skiing and squash.
Just my two cents. It sound like you are doing everything right. I think starting with a very long list of colleges and universities (i.e. casting a wide net) is the the way to go. Make a super-long list that includes all of the Ds (1,2, and 3). Then start reaching out. Some of this will become apparent as the process moves on. I think meeting coaches is the most instructive. Ask a lot of questions. One D1 may say they don’t permit this type of major or the other. A D3 school may not give enough needs based aid. Your D may look at the facilities of a D2 school and write it off the list. This will be a long, two year process. It may seem extremely difficult in the middle of the process. But as the process evolves, your D will know the right division and the right school.
Well, my son dove for the Nescacs for 4 years, graduated with honors, made the podium every year.
As for fame, several athletes went to Nationals every year, tho his goal was NOT to go so he could stop practicing and get his grades back up.
The top divers were highly talented, Olympic quality divers who had different life goals than D1.
In D3, your life is your own, and your academics come first. You can go abroad for a semester. You can major in science. You can do other activities. You still get teammates and structure and fame.
I’m extremely familiar with all the NESCAC coaches and facilities, feel free to PM me for details.Also Macalaster, Carleton and St Olaf.
NCAA D3 schools can ‘play up’ in one sport of their choosing for one men’s team and one woman’s team. They don’t have to, but can offer scholarships for that (those) team (and I suspect that if scholarships are offered for the men’s team, Title IX almost requires them to be offered to the woman’s team) . Hopkins plays up in lacrosse (both m&w), Colorado College plays up in men’s hockey and woman’s soccer. You’ll see more of a mix in some sports that aren’t NCAA, like men’s rowing. Our D2 school has won the the Dad Vail for the last two years against D1 boats.
Not that he needs me to vouch for him, but @OldbatesieDoc REALLY knows what he’s talking about, and has historically been very helpful to lots of folks on the Athletic Recruits threads, esp as related to D3/NESCAC. He’ll give you the straight scoop. You should use him as a resource.